Culebra Cut: the Continental Divide excavation
The Gaillard Cut, the 13.7 km artificial channel through the Continental Divide that was the hardest section of the Panama Canal to build and to keep open.
The Culebra Cut, officially renamed the Gaillard Cut on 27 April 1915, is the artificial channel about 13.7 km long that carries the Panama Canal through the Continental Divide, excavated through the rock and limestone of the Cordillera Central. It was the section that defeated the French attempt and it has required slope management ever since.
The full article will cover the excavation history under both the French and American programmes, the slide problem and the engineering response to it, the widening programmes that made two way traffic possible for larger vessels, and the naming of the cut for David du Bose Gaillard, who headed the Central Division and died in December 1913. It will also cover the navigational constraints the cut imposes on transit scheduling.